VIRTUAL - Local Leaders Build Engaged Citizenry and Resilient Democracies
Across North America and Europe, anti-democratic leaders and movements are pushing to bend or break rights, rules, and freedoms-respecting societies. But as Heartlands Transformation Network (HTN) Colleague Tamara Ehs, of Austria, notes writing in the HTN Substack, even as want-to-be autocrats push boundaries of civility and legality, in a variety of different ways across our countries, an engaged citizenry and local leaders are stepping into the breach to protect, preserve, and strengthen democracy.
Local political leaders such as mayors, city council members—joined by educators, civil society, social entrepreneurs, and business—play a crucial role in building and sustaining democratic attitudes, traditions, and processes. In response to growing political paralysis and polarization, ideological gridlock, and anti-democratic movements, these local leaders have built robust civic and democracy education and action networks – organizing effective responses to abusive pre-emption efforts by repressive, illiberal governments and actors.
Join our latest transatlantic virtual discussion hosted by the Jefferson Education Society, in which leaders of civic education and local democracy education and resilience-building efforts trade notes on the challenges they face and the strategies being developed and deployed to keep societies and democracies whole. You'll hear from elected officials, educators, and organizational leaders on the front-lines—in communities and geographies within our democracies—where the fight for the soul of society is being waged.
Tamara Ehs, a researcher and consultant for democratic innovations safeguarding democracy in Austria, Germany,and at the EU level.
Volker Rein, Coordinator of the Bonn Germany Network for Common Good and Democracy, and Member, Education for Democracy senior expert network, German Trade Union for Education and Science
Ryan Kostanecki, Professor Macomb Community College, outside Detroit, Michigan, leader of local citizen and democratic engagement efforts in this U.S. key battleground county.
Ben Speggen, Vice President of the Jefferson Education Society, an Erie-Pennsylvania based non-partisan think tank cultivating civic education and global citizen engagement in this key Pennsylvania battleground county people.
Facilitated by:
John Austin, Senior Fellow, Eisenhower Institute, Nonresident Senior Fellow Brookings Institution, Associate Fellow Academy of International Affairs- NRW and facilitator of the Heartlands Transformation Network.
Location: ZOOM Webinar
Date/Time: Wednesday, April 15th, 10:00-11:00 EST - 16:00-17:00 CET
Admission: FREE
The Industrial Heartlands Transformation Initiative is a transatlantic collaborative partnership dedicated towards closing geographic economic divides and reconnecting residents of rural and former industrial heartland communities to economic opportunity. The initiative works to return community pride and optimism about the future, and diminish the appeal of polarizing, resentment-driven, isolationist and ethnonationalist political movements that threaten our democracies.
The initiative, its learning exchanges, convenings, events, study tours, presentations, publications, and other learning products, are conducted with partners including the Brookings Institution; the Georgetown University BMW Center for German and European Studies; the Jefferson Educational Society; the Ruhrkonferenz of North-Rhine Westphalia; Policy Manchester at the University of Manchester, U.K.; the University Allianz Ruhr; the German Consulate General in Chicago; the University of Michigan; the European Commission Directorate of Regional and Urban Policy; and the Committee of the Regions of the European Union, among others.
